American Politics Journal

Fifty Years, Hold the Anchovies
by Bryan Zepp Jamieson

November 5, 2001 -- MT. SHASTA, CA. (APJP) -- Hee-wack!

Sometimes the good guys win one.

At a time when an illegitimate junta regime has taken over the United States and has phonied up a war against one of the weakest nations on earth -- to essentially stifle dissent at home in a blur of patriotism and close off public access to what used to be our government -- one high court still stands for freedom and the constitution.

The Ninth Court of Appeals ruled on a 2-1 vote Friday that a "three strikes" sentence given to a petty thief was unconstitutional. In the case in question, the guy was convicted of stealing $153.54 in video tapes from a convenience store, and was given fifty years to life for it.

Such absurdities were becoming depressingly common here in California, and they all stemmed from a well-intentioned but ill-thought out movement among the conservatives in the state.

In its original form, "three strikes" was meant to apply to anyone who had a history of conviction of two violent felonies who committed a third violent felony. It mandated at least 25 years in jail on the third conviction of a violent felony.

The only problem is that the state GOP, hagridden with Neo-Fascists and religious nuts, controlled the California Assembly, Senate and Governor's office at the time, and they quickly started posturing, with various politicians claiming that their stance on crime was harder and longer than the last guy's stand on crime, and by the time they were done standing around arguing over whose was longest and hardest, we wound up with a true abomination of a law. Several different versions were put before the voters, and they, of course, selected the one they were told would do the most to "deter crime."

Two violent felonies got changed to "any two felonies," partly because they wanted to appear tough on drugs, and "third violent felony" got changed to "third crime." Worse, a fairly inventive prosecutor could get it to apply to a first-time offender. All he had to do was secure convictions of breaking three different laws with one crime. A guy facing two to five for robbing a convenience store could get 25 to life if the prosecutor could convince the jury he littered while making his escape -- provided he had any prior convictions for littering. Since Prosecutors want as many scalps hanging off their belts as possible so they can run for higher office, they would get as inventive as possible. California law allows prosecutors to bump misdemeanors to felonies. As a result, there were about 8,000 people in jail on third-strike convictions.

The result was a string of cases -- some 350 by the end of this past summer -- where people who had committed petty crimes who were already two-time losers were looking at 25-to-life for such crimes as possessing a joint of grass, stealing a bicycle, and in one particularly weird case, stealing a slice of pizza. Twenty-five to life, hold the anchovies. One guy passed himself off as Tiger Woods to commit fraud against some Sacramento merchants. Boom! Two hundred years to life, a Kafkaesque absurdity in justice heretofore associated only with the goofy justice systems they have in Texas and had in the old Soviet Union.

It reached the point where even right wingers were starting to feel embarrassed, and tried to justify the draconian results of this law by noting that crime had dropped, ten, twenty, finally thirty percent.

The only problem was that during the Clinton Prosperity, crime dropped by the same amount everywhere, three strike laws or not, death penalty or not.

Conservatives are emotionally incapable of admitting that spreading the wealth does more to prevent crime than all the cops and prisons in the world, so they kept loudly insisting that three strikes "worked," and we started seeing juries refusing to convict and criminals killing to eliminate witnesses to petty crimes on the ground that you can only be sentenced to 50 years plus so many times before it becomes meaningless.

In the case on which the Ninth ruled, the criminal, one Leandro Andrade, stole the video tapes in 1995, a misdemeanor theft. Twelve years earlier, he had committed two unspecified non-violent felonies. Fifty to life. Sounds like the central character from a Kurt Vonnegut novel, doesn't he?

The court ruling, based on the eighth amendment clause against "cruel and unusual punishment" (fifty years, hold the anchovies) applies to this case only and doesn't strike down the third-strike law completely, but it leaves a gaping hole through which further appeals might abolish this cruel, stupid, and self-defeating law.

The state prosecutor's office is going to appeal to the court to reconsider the ruling on the interesting grounds that it claims the court didn't have the authority to rule on it on the first place. The claim supporting this is the even more interesting assertion that the Supreme Court already upheld "three strikes" and therefore no court could question any sentence handed down under it.

If Slappy, Stripey and Scaly like it, then the law is the law. Fifty years, hold the anchovies.

Conservatives, who hate and fear the American people, love three strikes. Like Hitler before them, they understand the importance of making judges subject to the whims of politicians. Independent courts result in such things as Brown v. Board of Education, or Roe versus Wade, or 8-0 decisions that Executive Privilege doesn't cover criminal cover-up, and that the tapes must be surrendered. You can see where conservatives would really hate that sort of thing.

Three strikes has never done anything to control crime, but it certainly is a great way to control judges, and that's what they're really after.

They'll fight against any encroachment on the Nuremberg-like "mandatory sentencing" laws as hard as they can. You can't control a society where judges are letting anchovy arch-criminals go free and upholding anti-monopoly laws. An independent judge is a dangerous judge if you need to rework the system to feather your own nest.

But the first really important blow has been struck. It would be nice if the American people could get involved in this, but I'm afraid they're all hors de combat, mesmerized like chickens by collapsing towers on TV and the empty promise that bombing Afghanis will make it all better. They're too busy condoning genocide abroad to worry about injustice at home.

Fifty years, hold the anchovies.